


Between the Shadow and the Soul

by SouthSideStory



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reylo - Freeform, Sex Work, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:43:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 9,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthSideStory/pseuds/SouthSideStory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. (Reylo drabble collection)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Used

He knocks twice, then waits in the darkness of the corridor outside Rey’s room. She answers quickly enough, eager to get him inside and out of sight. It bothers him that she’s so secretive where he’s concerned, that she’s ashamed to be fucking him, but Kylo wants her too badly to let pride get in the way of this affair.

As soon as the door is locked behind him, Rey kisses his neck, tugs at the fastenings of his dark clothes, her hands greedy and grasping. Once he’s naked enough she pushes him to the bed, climbs on top of him, and rides him roughly. He can’t get enough of the sight of her, those long legs straddling his hips, muscular and sweat-slicked; her small breasts bouncing as she takes her pleasure; the way she throws her head back when she’s close to climaxing, moonlight illuminating the sweet line of her graceful throat. He works his fingers on her sex, rubbing rapid circles until she shouts into the shadows, some wordless cry of fulfillment—but not his name. Never his name.

He lets himself come then, but as soon as it’s over, Kylo is reminded of what this is between himself and Rey. And more importantly, what it’s not.

She goes to her ‘fresher to wash up, then returns a moment later wearing a short robe. Rey picks his clothes up off the floor and dumps them unceremoniously on the rumpled bed next to him.

“Subtle,” he says dryly.

Rey rolls her eyes. “I don’t have time to play games with you, Kylo. I leave for a mission with Finn and Poe in the morning, and I need to sleep.”

He stands, starts to dress, his movements sharp and angry.

“Well then maybe I won’t have time to fuck you the next time you have an itch that needs scratching,” he warns, too hurt to weigh his words wisely. (Besides, it’s all bluster; he wishes he had the strength to resist her out of spite, but he doesn’t.)

Rey smirks at him and says, “We’ll see.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll be collecting my Reylo drabbles here! These pieces will be of various rating, length, and genre. I decided not to use archive warnings because although some drabbles may depict things like non-con or graphic violence, those elements won't reflect the entire collection. I'll give content warnings at the beginning of each chapter with sensitive material.
> 
> The title and summary are from Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets.


	2. Bartering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This drabble includes non-graphic descriptions of forced sex work. Although no rape is depicted directly, it is implied. 

The slave boy can’t be more than twenty. He has the look of a young man who hasn’t yet grown into his body—tall and broad-shouldered but gangly, with a nose too large for his narrow face and prominent ears he’s trying to hide under a mop of dark hair.

Rey sips her water and attempts to ignore him. It’s difficult, though, because he keeps staring at her.

This bolthole of a cantina on Tatooine makes Niima Outpost look like a cultured oasis, and she wonders how this boy ended up here. He’s currently being dandled in the lap of a silver-haired man with wandering hands, while nursing a cup of something he’s barely old enough to be drinking.

Rey makes herself look away, but she can still feel his gaze on her. Maybe he’s just scouting out his next patron; if so, he’s wasting his time.

The boy disappears into a back room with the silver-haired man, and Rey can’t help but wonder how much choice he has in the matter.

_It isn’t my place to intervene_ , she tells herself. Rey has been upbraided by the council on more than one occasion for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. She’s only on Tatooine for the night, and after she meets her contact, she’s supposed to report directly to Master Luke with whatever new information she gathers.

The boy returns just as Rey finishes her meal. It doesn’t surprise her when he claims the seat to her left. “I’m Ben,” he says. “Who are you?”

A fresh love bite colors his throat, red and angry, and he smells like sex. Ben’s master has dressed him in little enough—tight fitting tan pants with no shirt at all—and now that he’s closer she can see the marks on his body. Bruises on his wrists, like faded blue shackles, and scratch marks that mar the plane of his pale chest.

Instead of answering, Rey asks, “How old are you?”

“Old enough,” he says, smiling. But there’s something empty in his grin, a counterfeit cheer that makes her stomach turn uncomfortably.

“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not looking for… companionship,” Rey says gently.

“Really?” he asks, an unbearable knowledge in his dark eyes. “Because you seem lonely.”

“Oh? And you could tell this from looking at me?” Rey asks, bristling. She fidgets with her cup, just to have something to do with her hands.

Ben leans closer, until she can smell the liquor on his breath when he speaks. “It’s my business to know loneliness on sight.”

Rey feels herself blush. “I’ve taken vows,” she says plainly.

He shrugs, smirking. “Husbands and wives take vows, too. Doesn’t stop them from visiting me.”

Ben touches her wrist, his thumb tracing a slow circle over her pulse point.

_He has beautiful hands_.

Before she can pull away, Rey feels a sharp pain behind her eyes, and suddenly she’s seeing flashes of her own life, old memories overlaying the present. She’s sitting here, in this dirty Tatooine cantina—but she’s also five years old, crying herself to sleep, alone and hungry and afraid; now she’s seven, marking off another day on the wall of the toppled AT-AT that serves as her home, wishing someone would come back for her; and then Master Luke arrives on Jakku and tells her that she, a scrawny scavenger child, is strong in the ways of the Force, and that she’ll be coming with him.

Rey rips her hand away from the boy. She’s shaking, and a throbbing pain, like a dull headache, lingers at her temples.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, and she can hear the panic in his breaking voice. “I didn’t mean to do that. Sometimes, when I’m curious about someone, it just—it just happens—”

She’s unnerved and a little startled, because never, in her nineteen years among the Jedi, has Rey known anyone to use the Force this way.

“What else can you do?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says quickly, but it’s an obvious lie. Everything Ben feels shows so plainly on his expressive face.

“It’s all right,” Rey says. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, or frightened by it.”

“I’m not scared,” Ben says forcefully, but that’s a lie too. He’s scared all the time, she’d wager.

He’s too old for the council to consider taking him in and training him as a Jedi. They’d been hesitant to accept her, and she was only ten when Luke found her on Jakku. But she can’t leave him—this clever, charming young man who’s been marked for great things—to rot here on a backwater planet, enslaved and used.

And Rey knows, suddenly and surely, that no matter the consequences she’ll face for it, this boy is going to become her student.


	3. The Black Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren is masked and menacing, his aura cold and tumultuous, a dark storm in the Force. Maybe Rey should be intimidated by this black-clad creature with no face, but she isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble is based on winterofherdiscontent's endlessly inspiring art. I encourage you to check out winter's Empress Rey with her dark knight, which can be found here: http://winterofherdiscontent.tumblr.com/post/144552419709/the-ruins-of-our-empire-two-hearts-one

 

The emperor doesn’t like it when she fidgets, so Rey stands statue-still throughout the ceremony. Even after five years away from Jakku, she isn’t used to the pomp of the imperial court. There are unspoken rules that say she has to stand here without complaint, trussed up in a ghost-silk gown, a doll on display. That she must wear a spindly crystal crown, head held high, like she can’t feel the weight of it down every inch of her spine. The ghost-silk flows around her, as beautiful and insubstantial as desert rain, by turns ivory and silver, palest blue and ghoulish green.

Rey resists the urge to pull at her sleeve, and instead looks down at the man kneeling before her. Kylo Ren is masked and menacing, his aura cold and tumultuous, a dark storm in the Force. Maybe she should be intimidated by this black-clad creature with no face, but she isn’t.

“I offer myself to you, Princess.” Like Darth Vader, his voice is mechanical, inhuman, and Rey wonders what Kylo Ren would sound like without that death’s-head mask mutating his speech. “I will lend my saber to your service, protect you from harm, and gladly give my life for yours.”

Rey lays her hand on his shoulder, the way Grandfather told her to, and says, “I accept your oath. Now rise, Kylo, Master of the Knights of Ren.” The courtly words feel strange in her mouth, too formal to be real.

He stands, but even looming over her—tall and strong, his presence in the Force overwhelming—Rey is not afraid. Kylo may be powerful, yes, but she already knows with a strange, possessive certainty that he would never turn that power against her.

Regardless of where she grew up, Rey will be an empress someday. She has been bred for rule, he for obedient service, and this man belongs to her.  


	4. Lying Underneath

 

A thread of stubborn scar tissue survived bacta treatments, dividing Kylo’s face. It doesn’t bother him, because the burn is a good reminder of his mistakes. Perhaps seeing it in the mirror will keep him from repeating them. He should have aimed to kill the girl, but instead he offered to teach her, to guide her through the journey ahead. Now his repayment for that generosity is burned into his skin.

Kylo felt her awakening the moment her powers began to manifest, a blooming energy in the Force. But it wasn’t until he tried to probe her mind for the map and came up against the wall of her will that he realized how strong she was.

Tonight he lies in bed, trying to sleep, but he’s distracted by the scavenger. He can sense her presence in the Force, a point of warm blue, pulsing with the beat of her heart. So distant, yet so close. It seems almost as if she’s within arm’s reach, but Kylo knows this is an illusion, a trick of light. Half a galaxy separates them, no matter how near she feels.

.

.

Kylo dreams of the bridge again. The dimming light of a dying sun. Shadows settling between himself and Han Solo ( _Dad_ ). Until the darkness is dispelled by his lightsaber igniting, and the red blade burns through flesh and blood like it’s nothing—

He jerks awake, the ghost of that gentle touch still on his cheek. Twisted sheets and the vestiges of the dream are wrapped around him, so he scrambles out of bed and paces, feeling like a beast caught in a cage, sweating, trembling, suffocated.

Kylo braces his hands against the wall, head bowed. Takes deep breaths, reaching for some kind of calm, but he’s never been any good at that. All he can think of is Han Solo, brightened by bloody light, shock and pain written across his face. His weathered face, aged so much since a boy called Ben last saw him.

Dreams plague Kylo constantly now. He hasn’t slept through the night in two months, every dark hour haunted by the specter of Han Solo. He remembers taunting the girl about this very thing, how she would lie in her bed, so lonely, desperate for rest but unable to grasp it. Now he closes his eyes and pictures the ocean he saw in her imaginings. Waves rolling in every direction, a green island in the midst of all that blue. Recalling it soothes him; his body stills, breathing evens, heartbeat slows.

.

.

Kylo returns to bed, thinking of _her_ again. A pretty young woman, if dirty and disheveled. Restrained on Starkiller, confident and flippant enough to disrespect him despite her captivity. Fighting him in the snow, the glow of his grandfather’s lightsaber illuminating her in shades of blue.

But long before they met on Takodana, he had seen her in his visions. A girl growing up on a desert planet, scavenging for her daily bread, falling asleep in the rusting home of a hobbled AT-AT. A sad little life, free of the Force as far as he could tell, inconsequential in the grand scheme of the galaxy.

_Rey_ , that’s her name, but Kylo can barely bring himself to think it. It’s more comfortable to consider her in less personal terms: the scavenger, the girl. Of course, these are kinder by far than the words she uses for him. Creature in a mask. Monster.

This shouldn’t bother him, but for some reason it does.


	5. There Is No Betrayal Without Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mature rating for violence.

 

Finn wakes her at an unholy hour of the morning to tell her the news: Kylo Ren has stolen a ship and disappeared. He quietly assassinated a half-dozen of their highest-ranking officers in the night. Then he took off with a treasure trove of Resistance weapons schematics, security codes, and battle plans.

“He’ll be halfway back to Snoke by now,” Finn says.

“And Leia?” Rey asks, afraid to hear the answer.

“The general’s fine,” Finn says quickly. “But that’s the only good news I’ve got.”

Tears burn her eyes, and her voice catches in her throat when she says, “He tricked us. Made fools of us.”

_Made a fool of me._

“He’s a liar, Rey. That’s what they do.”

Finn hugs her, and she throws herself into the warmth and security of his arms. It helps, if only a little, to ease the horrible ache that’s settled in the hollow of her heart.

.

.

In his time as a spy among the Resistance, Kylo Ren taught her many lessons—but this one, Rey finds, is the most important: there is no room in a warrior’s life for a weakness like love.

She reminds herself of this three years later, when he lies bleeding, burned, and mutilated on the ground at her feet, his lone hand raised to ward her off. Rey hesitates, her double-bladed lightsaber trembling in her hands. Kylo curls around the stump of his right arm, hissing in pain, tears sliding down his cheeks.

“I trusted you,” Rey says.

She wishes he’d stayed with her. That things didn’t have to end this way.

“Rey,” he says—and how can he possibly draw a smile to his beautiful mouth in a moment like this? “I’ve missed you.”

She missed him too, but Rey will not let sentimentality stand in the way of what must be done. This man taught her too well for her to make the same mistake twice. She raises her lightsaber.

“Goodbye, Ben.”


	6. Adrift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a gift for LarirenShadow!
> 
> Mature rating for a non-graphic depiction of sex.

 

His uncle has always said that he was named after Obi-Wan Kenobi, not out of grief, but remembrance. His name was meant to be a living memorial and a reminder, something to help a boy so strong in the Force feel the legacy of the light, to keep the Jedi ways in his heart, always.

It isn’t overnight, the change that turns Ben Solo into Kylo Ren. A slow, even meandering path, takes him from home and leads him to the darkness. It’s Snoke’s whispers, eating away at the quiet of his mind, until his threats and promises are all Ben can hear. It’s his own shortcomings, driving him toward passion when he should embody serenity, sparking anger when his mind should be at peace. He is a difficult child who grows into a dangerous man, and from a distance he can feel his mother’s worry, his father’s confusion. From up close, Ben languishes under his uncle’s disappointment.

There is no singular moment that catalyzes the change. Only fear born through hate, failure after mistake after weakness, that drives him to shed his name like an outgrown cloak and accept a new one from his master.

.

.

It was a slow descent that turned Ben Solo into Kylo Ren, but it only takes one second to bring him back to himself.

Rey lies beneath him, her hands still buried in his hair, legs wrapped around his waist, panting in the aftermath. She says his name, his _true_ name, the one he’d thought would feel foreign forever. But suddenly it doesn’t, and he realizes that it hasn’t in a long time. Not since he stood on a bridge, facing his father, and made himself the faceless creature Rey accused him of being.

The part of him that was loyal to Snoke died on Starkiller years ago, but it isn’t until he’s looking down at Rey that Ben realizes the truth: he can’t bear to remain the enemy of someone else he loves. He’d sooner take his own life than hers, and he knows now that Kylo Ren is a mantle he can’t wear any longer.


	7. Just a Little Longer

The ocean offered a soothing blue lullaby, all whispered wind and breaking waves. It was a greater-than sort of noise, so encompassing that Rey’s choices felt almost small in the face of it.

Kylo was still asleep. So beautiful at rest, his dark hair tousled from love and slumber, powerful chest rising with each breath drawn, falling on every exhale.

_This was a mistake._ Rey had known that from the beginning, but she’d opened her legs just the same. Kylo had drawn her back to Ahch-To, intent on challenging her heart instead of her strength in the Force, and because she was weak, she’d let him have everything he wanted. On her back, then on her belly; her cries smothered by his kisses, then unhindered; slow and tender, then rough and hateful. She’d been as sweet as a princess for him, so compliant that it shamed her to remember every _yes_ and _please_ and _thank you_ she’d volunteered. And when Kylo grew tired of that, he’d goaded her into pushing, scratching, slapping him, only to wrestle her face down on the grass.

Rey squeezed her thighs together and felt the slick of Kylo’s spend there. Another mistake, that. She’d need to take an emergency contraceptive as soon as she returned to the Resistance. The sooner the better—

A strong hand reached out to catch her, Kylo’s grip firm on her wrist before she’d even begun to move away.

“Don’t leave,” he said, but it was soft, broken. A plea, not a command.

Rey could hear the quiet of Ahch-To, the isolation and emptiness of this tucked-away world all around them. The ocean’s pounding heart, Kylo’s desperate voice, and her own ragged breathing.

Rey shook her head. “I have to.”

But then Kylo climbed on top of her again. His touch was weighted with such reverence, his promises too extravagant to believe, giving her every reason to stay.


	8. Hungry Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my favorite person in the whole wide world, ReyloTrashCompactor, who requested “Show me!” + scar worship + tears/angst/regret. Taking prompts over at tumblr where I'm also southsidestory.

Kylo Ren was on his way to the Resistance. He couldn’t imagine that there would be much of a welcome waiting for him, but that was nothing new. He’d never had anything quite like home anyway.

But when the _Falcon_ landed, Kylo found himself on Ahch-To at twilight. A place of mist and green earth, an island at the edge of the galaxy. He could feel the Force cloaking everything, its power throbbing through the rocky ground beneath his feet.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

Rey met his gaze, even though fear radiated off of her like heat from a star. Not fear of him, though; fear of her own choices.

“Luke wouldn’t teach me,” she said. “Not really. I need help, and when I take you to your mother… I don’t know what’s going to be done with you.”

Kylo breathed deep, taking in the thin, briny air until he felt more full than empty. Then he shook his head. “There’s nothing worthwhile that you could learn from me.”

Rey strode over and pushed him, but without the Force behind it she didn’t have the strength to knock him back. “No! I’ve already had one teacher who was too afraid to show me anything. I thought you’d at least be brave enough to try _._ ”

She beat at his chest, her lovely face drawn into fierce lines. Stars, she was a warrior through and through, so much stronger than him. “Rey...”

Her blows weakened, and then she was only grabbing at his shirtfront, holding onto him with clenched fists. “Give me something,” she said. “Anything.”

Kylo covered her hands with his own, suddenly thankful that he’d taken off his gloves earlier. Now he had the privilege of feeling her. She wasn’t soft, her knuckles bony and skin wind-burned. She wasn’t soft, but she was perfect.

His voice felt bruised when he finally choked out an answer: “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Show me!” She looked up at him and whispered, “Please. Just show me.”

Kylo trembled all over, because Rey didn’t mean the ways of the Force anymore. She wanted him, like he’d wanted her for ages. He dropped to his knees and buried his face against her belly, fingers sliding beneath the leather straps of her belt. She yanked at his hair, her grip on the right side of too rough. Then she tugged him away from her stomach so that she could touch his scar.

“I’m not sorry I hurt you,” she said. “You deserved it.”

Kylo could only nod, because she was right. After everything he’d done, pain of the flesh was the least he had coming. Still, Rey’s fingers were gentle as they followed the ridge of his scar, tracing the remains of her own handiwork. There was no pride in her touch, only tenderness, forgiveness. And when she felt the wet of his tears, she sobbed too.

“But I am sorry that you hurt yourself, and I—I want to—”

Whatever she was going to say, Rey couldn’t voice it, so Kylo yanked at her belt, scrabbled to unwind it from around her narrow waist. Then he reached beneath her tunic to unfasten her pants, pulled them down along with her underwear and mouthed at the point of her hipbone—

Rey stumbled backward, stripping out of her clothes until she was naked, bare except for the wraps around her arms. She stood before him, all sharp lines and modest curves, shaking and flushed like she was dying to lie down and open her legs for him.

Kylo grabbed her by her knobbly knee, breathing hard. “Get on your back, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me—”

He yanked her closer and bit at her thigh. “Do you want me to show you or not?”

Rey stared at him like she’d enjoy slashing him with her lightsaber again, but she did as she was told.

Kylo licked and sucked his way from her belly to her lips, and when he tasted her he moaned her name. Kissed it into her mouth, slick and unrefined. Rey kissed back, every bit as messy as he was and even less practiced, her hands busy with his clothes. Unfastening, unbuckling, until he was naked enough, shirt open and pants down.

Kylo spread her thighs and slid his fingers inside her. One, then two, working her to wetness. She opened around him, tight little body giving in to his touch while she bit at the heel of her palm, smothering her cries. It took a long while to ease her nervousness, to break through her fear, but when she came Rey screamed loud enough to wake every creature on this island. Kylo had to laugh, a noise of pure pride that made her bite her lip, cheeks cherry red.

He pulled Rey’s legs over his shoulders and looked down at her. Her lips parted, softened with lust and something else, the first fragile start of a deeper desire.

“Do you feel it too?” Rey asked.

When he pushed inside of her, Kylo nodded, too choked on the beauty of her to speak.


	9. Darling, So It Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For cuquas’s prompt “Take my hand, Take my whole life, too” and Kuresoto’s request for an angsty force dream sequence! Special shoutout to WildConcerto for also giving me hand-holding feels. If anyone else wants to send me a reylo prompt, my ask box over at tumblr is open. :D

The world is on fire, but all Rey can see is Kylo Ren.

This is not the man she remembers. The creature in the mask has disappeared, and a scarred stranger with sad eyes has taken his place. He is as beautiful as he is broken, and Rey wants to reach out, to close the distance between them (what little that remains) and take his outstretched hand.

“Let the past die,” he says. “Kill it if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you’re meant to be.”

“I know,” Rey says, because this is nothing she hasn’t heard before.

_The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead._

Rey looks to the red rain falling around them, a storm of ash and embers. She wonders what future this is, or what past. These visions of Kylo— _with_ Kylo—have haunted her for weeks, and now he’s here again. Holding out his hand in the middle of this burning dreamscape. She pushes down her fear, rising like the high tide, and steps forward.

Kylo is shaking, his eyes liquid with reflected flames, dark gaze roaming over her. She can sense his need itching all over him, his desire to snatch her close—but he doesn’t. He waits.

Rey takes his hand, and for a moment she’s disappointed to feel only the leather of his glove. She wants to touch him, skin to skin, and that realization is so startling that she tries to jerk away. She can’t though; his grip on her is too tight.

Kylo pulls her nearer, until she can feel his breath warm on her face, as if they were truly together, but that’s just part of the illusion. There are a thousand stars and more between them, too stubborn to make way for two enemies—if they could even be called such anymore.

“I’m not letting you go now that I’ve got you,” he whispers.

Rey shakes her head. “You don’t have me, Kylo.”

_Not yet._

He looks her up and down, and there’s so much heat behind that slow glance that Rey feels it all over her body.

“Then what are you doing here?” he asks.

She squeezes his hand harder, grounding herself. Smoke fills the air, rich and smothering, and in the distance she can see the skeleton of a great temple on fire.

Rey remembers what she said to Luke when she first arrived on Ahch-To, before his fear and her frustration drove a wedge between them.

“I need—” She stops, takes a breath, and tries again. “I need someone to show me my place in all this.”

Kylo smiles, but it’s a weak, trembling thing. “Is that so?”

Rey stands straight, holding herself steady with all the strength she has within her. “If you’re still looking for an apprentice, it seems I’m in need of a teacher.”


	10. Now and Then / Here and There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr anon who requested “torture. Then and now. For him, for her.” Naturally, this content is very NSFW and possibly triggering, so please be warned that there’s a lot of pain in the next 300 words.

_**then / there** _

Ben screams for his mother, his father, his uncle. He screams to the walls, to the heavens, to the stars, but no one is listening—no one but Snoke, the only god in Ben’s small world.

He can’t breathe through his cries, and there is only the red of this room. It throbs around him, humming with his new master’s power in the Force, running like fire through his blood, electrifying everything under his skin.

“Your strength is raw,” Snoke says, “but I can teach you to refine it. To forge pain into power.”

Snoke twists his hand, and another lightning-quick jolt radiates through his body, searing his nerves and stealing his breath.

Ben can only cry until it stops. When Snoke releases him, he hits the floor so hard that he bites his tongue. Blood wells in his mouth, and it tastes of copper and the fear that’s left him trembling against the duracrete. Armored guards look on, as unfeeling and motionless as statues.

The guards and the walls and the blood staining his robes are all _red red red_ , and Ben knows that he’s gone too far, that it’s too late to turn back. It hurts, but he only has himself to blame.

.

.

_**now / here** _

Rey screams like Kylo once did, when he was still half a boy caught in his master’s grasp. Her cries are raw and red, like the guards and the walls, and he doesn’t want to see her blood too. He _can’t._

“Fulfill your destiny,” Snoke says. “Kill her.”

Kylo picks up his saber from the floor and ignites it. The scarlet blade wakes with a roar—one more red—but he knows that he won’t be able to wield it against Rey. Her screams are piercing, tearing at him as if the pain is his own—

He turns to his master, raises his lightsaber in a defensive stance (one that Luke taught him in another lifetime), and says, “Let her go.”


	11. Unfinished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For josskuhh over at tumblr who so kindly requested reylo jealousy!

Tonight the Force brings her to a meadow. Rey lies there, looking up at the clear sky, twilight lavender scattered with stars. She’s alone, the only soul in the entire world, until she isn’t.

Kylo sits beside her, his gaze as hungry as it is disapproving. “How’s your training going?” he asks.

“Fine.” Rey looks up at the darkening night so she won’t have to see Kylo’s odd, uneven face when he catches her lying. “Your uncle is a good teacher.”

“He is. When he bothers teaching at all.”

Rey turns onto her side, giving her back to Kylo. She’d never risk that in the real world, but this is only a dream, a stupid dream that the Force has been summoning them to every night. Sometimes they meet on deserts, or islands, or mountaintops, but regardless of the setting, Kylo Ren is always there.

Dream or not, she can feel his hand clasping her shoulder, and Rey shivers. It’s dangerous, touching here, where there are no consequences. Where it isn’t real and she can tell herself it doesn’t count.

“Even if I don’t know where you are, I can see how he treats you,” Kylo says. His grip on her shoulder tightens, fingers digging into her skin. “Why do you always defend him? Trying to find another father you never had?”

Rey sits up and beats at Kylo’s broad chest. It’s as futile as punching a duracrete wall, so she straddles his lap instead, catches his cheeks between her hands, and asks, “Why are you so jealous?”

Kylo grabs at her hips, shuddering. “I’m not.”

Rey rocks against him, working him to hardness, and pants in his ear all the while. “I think you are. I think you’re afraid that I do this with him, except it’s real, while you only get the dream.”

A low, guttural noise rips from Kylo’s throat, a sound of grief as much as anger or lust. “Do you?” he asks, even as he pushes up her white dress (she’s always in white in these dreams). “Do you let him between your legs?”

As soon as his fingers breach her, Rey hisses, “No, you idiot. It’s only you.”

“Good,” Kylo says. He smirks, that same small, crooked smile he’d flashed at her on Starkiller. The one that always makes her stomach flip with either fear or want.

Later, Rey wakes in her hut on Ahch-To, wet and needy between her legs. Her body is still unused, no matter how many times Kylo has had her in their dreams, and she hates it—if not as much as she hates herself for giving in to him.

It doesn’t matter. The things she lets Kylo Ren do to her are only as real as she wants them to be, and Rey doesn’t want them to be real at all.

 


	12. Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For cuquas on tumblr, who requested “another take of reylo under the rain? (Rey towering over Kylo)” and the lovely anon who asked for the same thing… except with smut which I failed to provide. >.> Sorry, nonnie!

Kylo Ren looked up at her with fearful awe, like she was a great and terrible creature. The sort of made-up monster that lurked under beds, or maybe a goddess out of legends. It was as heady as the Force in her veins, powerful like the lightsaber humming in her hands. Half dead on Starkiller he’d gazed at her the same way, but there was more to it now. Something deeper.

“Not going to pray for your life?” Rey asked. “Or are you too proud to beg a scavenger?”

It was only fair to play with him a little after the hell he’d put her through in that interrogation room.

“I don’t have to,” Kylo said. He licked his lips, a nervous gesture that made Rey’s grip on her saber tremble. “You’re not going to kill me.”

He wasn’t sure of that. Rey could feel as much, could smell his uncertainty all over him in the humidity of the Force, touch it through the bond they shared. He reeked of fear, but she couldn’t tell which he was so afraid of: that she’d kill him, or that she wouldn’t.

The rain was cold, each drop hitting her skin like a needle. Ice burrowing down, extinguishing the fury in her blood. Rey took a shivering breath, then another. _Just breathe,_ Luke had told her weeks ago, and that’s what she tried to do. A simple thing, so why was it suddenly such a challenge?

Kylo was a wretched weakling lying at her feet, burned and bleeding, and she should hate him, pity him, want to snuff out his wicked life. And she did, she _did_ —except, not as much as she should.

He sat up, not even wincing, as if the pain of his wounds didn’t register. The awe on his face had only grown, eclipsing his fear entirely, and somehow he was beautiful this way. Kylo Ren, enemy of the galaxy, soaking wet and injured, was still a pretty, pretty thing.

Rey stumbled away, lightsaber put out, plunging them into blue darkness.

Kylo lunged to his feet and grabbed her by the shoulders. She knew he was tall, it was impossible to miss, but she’d never felt as small before him as she did in that moment, his rough hands grasping at her with tenderness instead of violence.

“I know you feel it,” he said. Even in the dark, Rey could see the mad intensity in his eyes, the softness of that lush mouth.

She nearly choked on it, but she told the truth: “I do.”

There was supposed to be more— _I don’t care_ and _I still hate you_ and _you’ll never have me—_ but those were lies. Rey did care, she couldn’t hate him despite her best efforts, and Force forgive her, but he had her already in the ways that mattered.


	13. Something That He Can't Quite Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right y’all. The first paragraph of that EW article sounded like it was the beginning of an enemies to lovers fanfiction. So I wrote the drabble that could have followed it! You’ll also spot a little of what Adam Driver had to say about Kylo’s fascination with Rey. ;)

He _hates_ her. This girl. This garbage picker. This amateur who somehow drew his family lightsaber to her hand, overpowering his own bond with the Force.

She defeated him in the Starkiller interrogation room, and then he lost the battle against her in that frozen forest. She left him more dead than not, bleeding out red life on the white snow. Now Kylo has scars to remember the worst night of his life by, every mistake he made branded on his skin, all thanks to that girl.

He has to hate her. Scavenger and would-be rebel and Jedi acolyte: _Rey_.

Still, Kylo dreams of her. He sees her on the island, such a pretty, stubborn creature who bullies Luke into taking up the mantle of teacher again. He witnesses her tenacity while training, her beauty as she meditates, her power at all times. And as much as he despises it, he can’t help but admire her.

He’s never had a peer before. No one anywhere near his age, either ally or enemy, who could match him. It strikes familiarity and fear in him, and something else. Something that he can’t quite place. 

Until one night, in the throes of his never-peaceful sleep, Rey sees him too.

It’s raining, her hair has fallen down, and her clothes are soaked. She looks lovely and strong, breathing hard when she asks, “Kylo?”

It’s a shock, hearing his name from her. The sound of it in Rey’s accent is foreign, her familiarity unexpected. No one calls him Kylo. It’s Ren or Lord Ren, always, and it startles him to hear Rey address him like she’s an equal. 

She is, he supposes, despite her lack of training. Starkiller proved that.

“Rey,” he says--the first time he’s allowed himself to speak her name aloud.

She stumbles backward, scowling. Still afraid of him then. Good. He wants her to fear him, to see the man who stole her on Takodana, the creature who sifted through her mind while she was trapped. Not a weakling she left for dead in the snow. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks. 

Kylo has no lightsaber to draw, not in the midst of a dream, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. This isn’t real, not in the way of flesh and blood. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “Why bother staying when my uncle refuses to teach you?”

“You--you’ve been watching me?” Rey asks.

She backs away again, reaching for a lightsaber that isn’t there (that isn’t hers anyway).

Kylo catches up to her easily. He’s larger, stronger, faster. If he hadn’t gone into their battle already wounded he’d have overpowered her, won her like a prize and carried her back to his master. But when he takes Rey by her shoulders, he finds her solid under his hands, as if they were truly standing on the same ground. That sense of something else, something more, overwhelms him, and for the first time Kylo faces it for what it is.

He _wants_ her. As an ally, a student, a friend, maybe even a lover. He wants this scavenger girl who shamed him. He wants Rey.


	14. What's Yours Is Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the wonderful kayurka who I can’t thank enough for requesting a piece about Rey using Kylo’s lightsaber! This didn’t go at all in the direction I meant it to, but here you go. :P

Fighting with Kylo’s lightsaber wasn’t anything like handling Luke’s or her own. She’d found that out from the moment she pulled it from Kylo’s offering hand on the _Supremacy_. The hilt was huge, made for a towering man, and as soon as she’d ignited the saber she felt the conflict of the cracked kyber crystal. How the beams worked against themselves, an unstable riot of power that would have strained her to wield if she’d had it for much longer.

That was three years ago. Now Rey sat on the floor of the _Millennium Falcon_ with Kylo, holding his lightsaber again. It lay quiet in hands, but she knew that if she brought it to life right now it would shine white, not red. Cleansed but not healed entirely. The crystal would never repair the fracture at its heart, no more than Kylo could close up all his wounds.

“This thing is a monster,” Rey said. Even with its turbulent light extinguished Kylo’s saber was heavy, a large thing built for large hands.

“Well then it’s found a fitting home, hasn’t it?” he asked, voice insufferably dry.

Rey kicked him, ungracefully and ungently. “Shut up.”

Kylo took his lightsaber from her and set it aside. “Come here.”

Rey scowled, but she straddled him all the same, tugging at his clothes. She hadn’t made love to him in almost a week, and her body was every bit as impatient as his had to be.

Kylo grabbed her hands, stilling them. “You were beautiful. That day on the _Supremacy_ , I mean. Seeing you fight like that, like my weapon was yours… well, it’s a miracle I didn’t get myself killed, I was so distracted.”

Rey shifted on his lap, heat crawling from her forehead to her breasts. She didn’t like to think on that time, when they were more enemies than not and yet still drawn together. By the Force, she knew, but that was the least of it. There were more animal things attracting them to each other: loneliness, lust, and a strange compassion that neither of them could understand. Love came later.

“That was a long time ago,” Rey whispered.

He kissed her, slow and soft, his sensitive mouth working hers so perfectly. Making her whine, making her need. Long before he’d ever gotten between her legs, Kylo was in her thoughts, in her heart.

When their kiss gentled to the barest brush of lips, Kylo murmured, “I’d like to see that again.”

“What?” Rey asked, feeling drunk.

He pulled away, almost smiling. “I’d like to see you fight with my lightsaber again. I think you handle it better than I do.”

“Undoubtedly,” Rey said, “but I’m surprised that you don’t mind your wife showing you up.”

Kylo bit at her lower lip, playful enough to sweet, rough enough to be mean. That was him all over, contradictions in everything he did, and all of it seemingly designed to make her love him more.


	15. Remorse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains The Last Jedi spoilers!! Also nsfw.

It was Ben’s _please_ that had convinced her. Not an offer to rule the galaxy, not loyalty proven by the dead men at their feet. No, it was one word, soft from his mouth. That was it: _please_.

So she’d taken his hand--gloved, not bare this time--and accepted her place by his side.

Rey wasn’t naive enough to believe that his offer was purely a business proposal, a political alliance of lonely creatures. She knew that as soon as they were safe and alone, Ben would need more.

Rey didn’t want to think about the Resistance, all of her short-lived allies and friends in cells. Even Finn, who had looked at her like he didn’t know her. Even Leia, who seemed more disappointed in her than in Ben. She tried to tell herself that it was better this way, that they would have all died on Crait if she hadn’t been there to calm Ben’s temper, to help him see through the Luke who was there-but-not. But that was a lie. She’d given up her friends because she wanted Ben more.

Might as well have sold them off for drinking money.

Ben didn’t wait until they were both clean or even checked over in the medbay. Just took her by her hand and pulled her to his quarters. They were as spartan as everything else on the _Finalizer,_ all black and sleek durasteel cut by hints of red.

Ben’s bed was barely large enough to hold him, much less both of them, but he laid her down beneath him and kissed her. Finally, she had his strong body on top of hers, the comfort of his mouth. Taking, giving, learning together. She could drown her regrets in Ben the way her parents had once drowned theirs in white liquor.

“Thank you,” Ben breathed.

“For what?” Rey asked, although she already knew. She just wanted to make him say it.

He kissed his way down her body, sucking red bruises on her skin. “For choosing me.”

His mouth was soft between her legs, warm and sweet, if unpracticed. He’d awoken so much in her already, and now he gave her more. Pleasure she’d only glimpsed on cold nights on Jakku, touching herself just to feel something besides exhaustion, emptiness, and that ever-present need for love. Now she was still exhausted, still empty, but Ben had given her love.

Rey grabbed his thick hair, whining, “Now, I need you now.”

He took her tenderly at first, but that wasn’t what Rey wanted. She was breaking apart inside, every bit the selfish scavenging slave she’d been on Jakku, only now it was Ben who owned her.

“Make it hurt,” she said.

He frowned down at her, trembling from the effort of being so gentle. She could feel what he was thinking: that he wanted to be rough, but she was too good, too pure, to mistreat that way.

“There’s nothing pure about me anymore.” He’d seen to that already.

Ben was going to argue, but Rey shook her head, crying. “Make it hurt,” she said again. “Please, Kylo.”

After she said his name--his true name, the one he’d chosen for himself--he fucked her hard. Took her with all the strength his hot temper and brutal body possessed, and she loved every moment of it.

Afterward, Rey lay awake, aching where he’d had her so roughly. She was a monster’s traitor and a monster’s slut now, but at least she wasn’t alone.


	16. The Middle Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For lochtayboatsong on tumblr who requested an intense first time and aftercare. TLJ spoilers ahead!

It hurts at first, the way their bodies come together, hard to soft. But then both of them are lost in need and wet, and Rey doesn’t care anymore. Not with Ben on top of her, looking at her like she’s the air he breathes.

_You’re nothing... but not to me._

That hurts too, but now he whispers, “You’re everything,” and Rey clings to him harder. Meets every thrust, welcoming him between her thighs now, just like she welcomed him into her heart all those months ago on Ahch-To.

They’re a mess afterward, shaking and gasping, Ben’s skin welted where she’d scored her nails down his back, Rey sore from being taken so thoroughly. They lie together, side by side, stealing chaste kisses from each other, Ben’s fingers twisted in her hair. He manhandles her onto her back, and at first Rey thinks he means to have her again.

“I can’t,” she says, hot all over, almost too embarrassed to admit the truth. “I--I think I’m bleeding.”

Ben presses his forehead to hers, his huge hands holding her face. “I know. I just want you under me.”

Rey wraps her legs around his waist. She feels so small beneath him, fragile in a way that she could never afford to be before, least of all with Ben. He gives no quarter to his enemies, offers nothing gentle to his allies. And yet here, in this cheap hotel room lit only by the grey dawn, he’s so tender it aches. Kind and calm, patient with her as they learn to love together.

“What does this change?” Ben asks. “Does it mean anything to you?”

Rey pushes his chest, and he pulls back, frowning down at her. Waiting for her answer.

“Of course it does,” Rey whispers. “I--you know how I feel.”

Ben’s jaw works, his sensitive mouth trembling. “Then say it.”

He’s always telling her to voice the most difficult things, and Rey follows his orders every time. She doesn’t understand how he brings out obedience in her, and she wishes she hated it more.

So she says it: “I love you.”

Ben never returned to the light, and Rey never fell to the dark, but there are still times when they can meet in the middle.

Later, after Ben has cleaned her up with a warm washcloth and they’ve kissed themselves to a drunken half-sleep, he asks her not to leave, to stay with him through the night.

“I will,” Rey promises.

She’d stay with him forever, but there are things that he’d have to give up first, like the throne he usurped and the corruption of the Force that he clings to. But for tonight, at least, she can take a moment to forget his weaknesses. To lie here with the man, not the monster.


	17. I Choose Her

He freed FN-2187 and his girl, let them go with one message: “Tell Rey I don’t choose the light or the dark. I don’t choose the Jedi or the First Order. None of it. I choose her.”

It must have taken about a standard day for the escapees to reach the Resistance, because Rey came to him the next night. Ben felt the hum of her presence in the Force, a chill across his skin, before he saw her.

She was sitting on the floor, legs drawn to her chest, watching him with wet, wary eyes.

“You choose me?” she asked. “What does that even mean?”

Ben sat before her, close enough that he could touch her knee. “It means I’m done with fighting to figure out where I belong. I know where I belong, and it’s with you.”

Rey bit her lip, her tears falling now. He’d made her cry so many times, and he hoped to never do it again.

“You couldn’t have figured that out a year ago?” she asked.

“I did,” he said, sharply enough that he regretted it immediately. Then softer, “I asked you to stay with me.”

Rey pulled away, breaking contact but not their connection. “No, you asked me to abandon the light and become, what, _Supreme Leader Rey_? Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”

It sounded beautiful to Ben, but that opportunity had passed, and he wasn’t sorry for it anymore. Not now that his fury had waned and he could see more clearly. He’d wanted his master’s power and Rey’s love, but he hadn’t understood then that it was impossible to have both. Whatever affection she held for him would have wilted under the weight of darkness, and they would have lost each other.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, “but I want to change. I want to be a man who can walk beside you.”

Rey trembled, shaking her head a little. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

Ben touched her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin. She felt so real, so present, even though she was only half here and light years away.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “I’ll prove it.”


	18. Mirage

When their hands touch, Rey sees Ben’s future, solid and clear: he won’t bow before Snoke.

That isn’t all she sees. It moves so quickly, just flashes of what’s to come: fear, anger, compassion, peace, desire, love—and a need to be chosen, for someone to put Ben Solo first. And through it all Rey finds herself. Fighting alongside Ben, red and blue sabers flashing as they face down their enemies together. Making love and waking in each other's arms the morning after. Holding their children, a son and daughter whose names Rey can’t know. Both of them take after Ben, with his dark hair and fair skin, beauty marks and full lips. But the girl has Rey’s nose and both of them have her eyes, hints here and there that she’s their mother.

A family. Rey will have a family one day, made with this man she knew only as a monster a few days ago.

.

.

In the elevator up to Snoke’s throne room, Rey steps close to Ben, invading his space. She looks up at him and wills him to want her the way he should, the way her vision promised. She’s choosing him, and she needs him to choose her right back.

.

.

After Crait, Rey lies awake, thinking of her vision. It had to be a lie, one she should never have believed in the first place. An illusion that the dark fed her, to drive her toward Ben when she should have stayed far, far away.

She holds the broken halves of the Skywalker lightsaber, the weapon she’d scarred Ben with, fought by his side with. She’ll have to rebuild it, fashion it into something of her own before she faces him again.

.

.

The next time she sees Ben, Rey has two blades on her lightsaber instead of one. He moves like a feral creature, furious and desperate, giving no quarter and leaving her no choice but to do the same.

 _He wants to kill me_ , Rey thinks, and it’s this—the loss of a hope she didn’t know she still held—that weakens her. That sends her to her back on the sands of Jakku. Ben stands over her, the burning point of his lightsaber at her throat, so close that Rey flinches at the hot embers sparking against her skin.

“Ben, don’t do this,” she says. “Please.”

His hand is shaking so badly that Rey fears he’ll slit her throat by accident. His beautiful mouth trembles, brown eyes overwet as he looks down at her.

Then his lightsaber extinguishes, and Ben throws it to the ground. He falls to his knees, pulls off his glove, and holds out his hand.

Rey takes it, holding on so tight that she isn’t sure she can ever let go.

.

.

Naboo is like something from a dream, all green fields and blue lakes, a world beautifully alive. Their children play in the grass, tumbling together. Janos tugs his sister’s hair, and Sera pushes him hard in the chest, knocking him over. She’s strong for a five-year-old girl, even though she’s going to grow up to be as tiny as Leia. Or maybe Janos just lets her get in a few blows here and there; he dotes on his little sister too much.

Rey leans against Ben’s chest, taking comfort in the steadiness of his strong body. He’s balanced today, happy even, as he watches their children play. Innocent, like neither of them have been in such a long, long time.

Someday, sooner that she’d like, they’re going to have to tell them the truth, who Ben was and what he’d done. But not today. This is a day for joy, for simple loves.


	19. Waiting Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an anon on tumblr who requested virgin Rey and experienced Kylo! Begins with some brief Kylo/OC but is overall very Reylo centric smut. E rated.

The woman Kylo had brought to his bed was a pretty thing. Tall and slender with chestnut hair and a posh imperial accent. Her mouth was too soft to be Rey’s, her eyes too dark, but the resemblance was close enough.

“Kylo,” she whimpered, arching to meet him. “You feel so good.”

He fucked her harder, eyes closed.

“Call me Ben,” he ordered, and she did.

Kylo kicked her out afterward. She went happily enough, unbothered by his brusque goodbye. There were plenty of women willing to climb into bed with their Supreme Leader, and most were smart enough not to seek more than that. He made it clear what he wanted--the comfort found between soft thighs--and what he didn’t, which was anything else.

The one he loved had turned him away, spurned his offer to rule together, to _be_ together, so Kylo took pleasure where he could and didn’t look back.

He wasn’t like Rey; he refused to wait on a love that had abandoned him.

.

.

Rey’s voice was so small when she asked, “Have you ever…?”

“Yes,” Ben said shortly. There was no point in hiding it, no matter how ashamed he was--not of the sex itself, but that he’d given up on the bond he should have held fast to.

He didn’t have to ask the same question of Rey. Her inexperience was written all over her quivering body. So Ben went slowly. He tugged her awkward arms from across her chest, baring the beauty beneath. She was so small, her breasts not quite full enough to fill his hands. Ben licked a languorous stripe from the underside of her left breast to her modest, rosy nipple, suckling it to a peak.

“Mine,” he said, as he slid two fingers between her legs, into her soft little sex. “All mine, aren’t you?”

Rey turned her face away, but she hissed, “Yes,” giving him that grudging truth.

He crooked his fingers inside her, hitting that sweet spot that every woman liked to have touched. Rubbing it tore a moan from Rey, same as it had every other lover he’d taken to bed.

“Stop it,” she cried. “Stop thinking about the others you had.”

Ben worked her harder, faster, slicking his fingers with her eager wet. “It’s only fair. When I was with them I only thought about you.”

She writhed, rocking up into his touch, head thrown back and mouth open on a long, high whine. He was glad of it now, that he could give Rey a first time full of pleasure.

She came so quickly, not two minutes into their lovemaking, sobbing, _“Ben,”_ the way he’d imagined for years.

“Maker, you’re easy for me,” he said.

Rey slapped his shoulder. “I hate you.”

Kylo wiped his fingers across her belly, then dipped down to lick the bittersweet damp from her skin.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “Not anymore.”

.

.

Rey may have come to his bed unused, but by morning Kylo had had her nearly every way there was. The only intimacy they didn’t touch on was sleeping together, and that only because he didn’t give Rey a chance to rest.

A green dawn broke, cutting through the windows to fill his bedroom with wan light. Ben held Rey close, her back to his front. He breathed in the scents of their lovemaking, sweat and come and girlish wet, filthy smells that clung to both of them.

“Did you do it to hurt me?” Rey whispered.

He didn’t have to ask what she meant.

“Maybe a little,” Ben admitted. “But mostly I just wanted to feel less alone.”

When Rey said nothing, only lay carefully still against him, he asked, “Does it bother you? That I didn’t wait.”

She shook her head. “No. I just hate that you had reason to be with anyone else. I wish…”

Ben thought of the three years they’d spent apart, fighting a war, bound so close in the Force yet unable to truly touch. Like faces on opposite sides of the same coin.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ben said. “It’s just us now.”


	20. And the Moon Hung Heavy in Your Eyes

Love can survive anything. This is what Rey tells herself on the nights when the Force opens up between her and Ben, and her breaths echo across a secret bridge to mingle with his.

“Will you join me?”

It’s the same question every time, as if he thinks he can wear her down to answering, should he only ask enough.

“Why do you even bother? You know I won’t,” Rey says.

Ben sits at the foot of her bed, looking at her with such open anger that she nearly flinches. He halfway hates her for not standing by his side, for choosing the Resistance over ruling with him, and Rey can’t take one more moment of it.

She moves closer to him and holds out her hand. If he takes it she might shatter, but it would be worth breaking to feel his touch again.

She can see the moon reflected in the liquid dark of his eyes, mirrorbright, but only for a moment, because then he pulls her close and buries his face against her neck. He mouths lewd kisses along her collarbone, her throat, wet and hungry.

Rey can’t give voice to her love, not when it’s steeped in so much betrayal, but she thinks it with all the heart she has left and hopes that Ben can feel it too.

 


End file.
